Jim Fenton has worked at The Enterprise since 1981 and began covering the Celtics in the 1985-86 championship season when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish formed the Big 3. He was seated courtside for nearly every home game during the 22-
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Jim Fenton has worked at The Enterprise since 1981 and began covering the Celtics in the 1985-86 championship season when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish formed the Big 3. He was seated courtside for nearly every home game during the 22-year title drought that came to an end in 2008 when the new Big 3 of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen turned things around.

The Celtics played their first regular-season double-overtime game since 2009 on Wednesday night, hanging on to defeat the Dallas Mavericks, 117-115.

The reward for that victory, which improved the Celtics to 12-9, is a challenging schedule with seven of the remaining nine games in 2012 on the road.

The Celtics being a three-game trip on Friday night when they meet the high-scoring Houston Rockets, then play the Spurs in San Antonio on Saturday night before moving north to meet the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night.

Losing to the Mavericks, who are without Dirk Nowitzki, would not have been a proper sendoff with such a tough road ahead.

The Celtics were ahead by 14 points with 4:57 to go in the third quarter when Chris Wilcox converted a Rajon Rondo feed, but the Mavericks were within 76-70 by the end of the quarter.

Dallas took its first lead at 95-94 on a Derek Fisher 3-pointer with 1:47 to go in regulation before the Celtics tied it. Rondo then had a shot blocked by Fisher just before the buzzer went off.

At the end of the first OT, Paul Pierce couldn't get a shot away when it looked like he might have been fouled by Dahntay Jones.

The Celtics finally prevailed in the second overtime when Pierce scored eight of his 34 points.

"I feel like this is our chance,'' said Pierce. "We didn't want to let this one get away, especially with a huge road trip coming up. This is a big win for us. For us to go double overtime and show some resiliency, it was great.''

The Celtics' main players had to log some long minutes with Rondo (16 points, 15 assists, nine rebounds) playing 52:30, Jason Terry going 47:45, Pierce playing 44:01 and Kevin Garnett 40:08.

"I think it ust comes down to mental toughness,'' said Pierce. "These types of long games, these types of marathon games can be really draining on you. I like the way we pulled through.''